Confused? Great time to use your imagination.

 

The best time to use your imagination is when you feel confused.  Confusion occurs when familiar boundaries disappear.

The word confusion comes from two Greek words:  Con meaning with and fusion meaning two things melting together. Normally we know where one thing ends and another begins. We get confused when those separating lines or boundaries blur. That’s happening a lot these days.

Children have access to all the information they need without having to consult their elders for the first time in history.   Elders used to censor what the youth heard and saw, no longer though. The kids just go online. There’s a great deal of confusion among parents and governing bodies about how to watch and protect children.  The lines of educating them are a blur.

Anyone can to take tuition-free courses from post-secondary institutions.  Confusion over quality of education?  You bet. More lines are blurring.

We can use imagination to move forward instead of struggling to fit the new into the mold of the old. Wouldn’t it be great to redefine and/or create new definitions to replace ones used years ago that no longer serve. (Did you know our system of education was created 300 years ago?  Think it’s time for an upgrade?)

What’s great about all the confusion we’re experiencing right now is that we are all in it together. 

(I’ve a hunch that people who say they know for sure what’s coming next are putting on a brave face to mask the confusion they feel as certainties from the past tumble topsy-turvy.  No one is exempt. My favourite is when politicians say, “let me be perfectly clear” and promise a certainty in these boundary-blurring times.)

So let’s use our imagination to create new clarity, new understandings and new ideas. In doing so we’d drop the barriers that separate and collaborate as if we are all part of a whole system, representing different and valuable perspectives. We’d leverage collective and varied strengths to make the [world, organization, school, business, family, community, government]  a better place and to make our place in the [world, organization, school, business, family, community, government] better too.

World Creativity and Innovation Week is coming – April 15 – 21.  Wouldn’t that be a great time to use imagination to create something new?